i love the idea of using a spacer block to get the cuts a nicer size
I dunno about you lads but i used to mark cuts from above but it was a pain,so now i run the patttern to edge then use a straightedge and a paving marker (where appropriate) to get nice straight cuts
i was thinking the other day (dangerous i know) but it would be handy to have a stencil for doing the cuts inside a recessed manhole cover, just lay 20 blocks on a piece of ply and lay a stencil on and mark them then cut them
just thinking
LLL
For driveway jobs, the usual spec is to maintain the paving pattern, so your cuts will vary with almost every installation, according to the position and alignment of the tray within the pattern...
...but for specification/commercial work, there's often a requirement to put an isolating band around the trays, so, in theory, you could use a pre-cut template of blocks for each tray...
yes but what i was thinking was that you could obviously aline your stencil to the pavement ,mark say 3 triangulation points then lay it on the blocks and mark away
i know there are people on here who reckon its a 20 minute job but i always find it a pain and hard to line up the cuts 5 mm back from the edge of the tray
put it this way,if they sold 1 for £20 i would buy it
over to you gaffer and evans innovations
LLL
The next problem is the non-standard nature of the trays we use. Do we produce a template for the Clark-Drain trays with their centrally positioned recessed lifting keys, or those with diagonally opposite triangular lifting eyes., or even those with four eyes, as shown in my sketches above?
I'm doing another research project for Clark-Drain next week, so I'll mention it to their ideas bloke and see what he thinks....
personnally I would ban recessed covers.
before everyone starts to fly off the handle, let me explain. i run the utilites on a large factory site, where ever the client has had block paving work they have specified recessed covers, they are every where. they do look good until you have to lift one and thats where the problem lies. At best you need a couple of gorrilas to lift one if it will lift. There has been many occasions where a combination of either over wacking, or over filling or even heavy road traffic , has caused it to wedge in requiring the use of chains and a telehandler to lift. Using this method has resulted in the frame and surrounding concrete and blocks to come out many times. In my experience they are a right royal pain in the arse and most of all dangerous ,give me a steel cover any day.
same here i tend to wack the drive with the cover out then grease the sides install the cover and fit the blocks into the cover last
i find the blocks in the cover do NOT wack down hardly at all and its one of my many pet hates seeing IC recessed trays sticking up like a turd on the thames
i expect if artics have run over them they might be a bit sticky
LLL
astro wrote:personnally I would ban recessed covers.
before everyone starts to fly off the handle, let me explain. i run the utilites on a large factory site, where ever the client has had block paving work they have specified recessed covers, they are every where. they do look good until you have to lift one and thats where the problem lies. At best you need a couple of gorrilas to lift one if it will lift. There has been many occasions where a combination of either over wacking, or over filling or even heavy road traffic , has caused it to wedge in requiring the use of chains and a telehandler to lift. Using this method has resulted in the frame and surrounding concrete and blocks to come out many times. In my experience they are a right royal pain in the arse and most of all dangerous ,give me a steel cover any day.
Surely then once bitten twice shy, would be more viable to take the blocks out to reduce the weight and re-lay after remedial work ??? I can see where you are coming from with concrete filled covers though, especially inside tight areas. I made a little contraption with a tiny jack to lift them. Being the boss maybe you could get the fitters to come up with a tool.?
Take out the blocks then relay, surely you are not serious! The idea of the covers is to allow quick and easy access, of which they fail on both accounts. some jobs I have to do reqiures the removal of 10-15 covers in a day. This is easy to do with normal steel covers, impossible if I have to arrange to get them dismantled beforehand. As for the concrete filled ones, they are easy to deal with as filling them doesnt distort them so the never stick, just means i need a telehandler to lift them. on the site there must be 1000+ covers of one type or another, just dont need the hassle of the block paving ones. Like I said, they look nice, just a bitch to maintain the services under them
We grease our covers too, can still be an ar$e to get out though, was thinking though, would it be possible to put a thin bead of resin in the joint between cover and frame that peels out when you need access ?
I have a little trick for recessed manholes i use and it seems to work very well.
I sed to wack them in situ, laid on said, all the kiln gets down the sides, grease never did much good either.
Now i
lay job, cut in upto manhole cover. wack the drive with the cover in the frame so it doesnt distort ( i forgot to put a cover in once and my god did it distort, i,ll never do that again! )
Then i lay the manhole on a lean mix of 4:1 sand and cemet and then wack this down using one of the box section ally bars like i use for screeding.
Result is a perfect manhole which can be removed with ease, i ,ll be honest i havent tried to lift them years later but evn a few months later they are still easy to get out, the trick is making sure no kiln gets down there, a bit of dirt is ok buit kiln......
nice job there,i always try to keep the lid 10-15mm down to allow for some settlement,nothing worse than when they stick up,mind you when i first did block paving in about 87 we were advised to use 50mm scaffold poles as screed rails and the blocks were 90 mm
i dont like those covers with the pop up handles,4 corners FTW!
LLL
